Large Transport of Repatriated Jews from USSR Arrives in Poland; Settled in Silesia

February 26, 1946

Warsaw (Feb. 25)

Five transports of Jewish repatriates from the eastern Ukraine, totaling about 2,700 persons, have arrived in Lower Silesia, it was reported here today.

Over 2,000 of the repatriates, who had been living in the Soviet Union since the outbreak of the war in 1939, were received by the local authorities in Reichenbach, while 700 were routed to Pilau.

The Central Jewish Committee here sent two representatives to Reichenbach to provide the arrivals with money. Clothing and other supplies were sent there from Gdynia. The committee has launched a campaign to raise 5,000,000 zlotys (approximately $50,000) among Polish Jews to assist the repatriates, and has appealed to American Jewish organizations to contribute $500,000.

Medical relief brigades were stationed at the railway stations along which the repatriates traveled en route from the USSR. Local Jewish committees in Cracow, Przemysl, Tarnow, Lublin, Bialystor and other cities furnished temporary housing for them, and the Government made military barracks available.